Heat Waves (4) A Climate Case Study:

In the last article I wrote that the extreme events of 2011 were providing us with the opportunity to think about climate and how to cope with a warming world. The U.S. is experiencing an extreme heat event this week (Masters @ WU). This heat wave is the consequence of a strong, stationary high pressure system over the central U.S., and it will move to the east over the next few days. Back on July 14th The Capital Weather Gang did a nice write up on the forecast of the heat wave. At the end of this blog are links to my previous blogs on heat waves and human health.

When thinking about weather, climate, and extreme events an important idea is “persistence.” For example, a heat wave occurs when there are persistent high temperatures. Persistent weather patterns occur when high and low pressure systems get large and stuck; that is, they don’t move. In the Figure below, you need to imagine North America and the United States. There is a high pressure center over the proverbial Heartland. With blue arrows I have drawn the flow of air around the high pressure system, and in this case moist air. There is moisture coming from the Gulf of Mexico and, in fact on the date when this was drawn, from the Pacific. This is common in the summer to see both the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific as sources of continental moisture.

Figure 1: Schematic of a high pressure system over the central United States in July. While generic, this is drawn to represent some of the specifics of 2011. The green-shaded area is where there have been floods in 2011. The brown-shaded area represents sustained drought in the southern part of the nation.

At the center of this high pressure system there is a suppression of rain, because the air is moving downward. This sets up a situation where the surface heats from the Sun’s energy. There is not much mixing and cooling, because of the suppression of the upward motion that produces rain. Hence, if this high pressure system gets stuck, then there is persistent heat. This is a classic summer heat wave.

Let’s think about it some more. There is lot of moisture being drawn around the edge of the high pressure system, and this moisture contributes to the discomfort of people. People – just a short aside about people: if we think about heat and health, then we are concerned about people’s ability to cool themselves. It is more difficult to cool people when it is humid because sweat does not evaporate. Suppose that in addition to this moisture, there is a region where the ground is soaked with water from flooding. Then on top of already moist air coming from the Gulf, there is local evaporation into the air being warmed by the Sun. If on the interior of the high, where the rain is suppressed, there is hot, wet air, then it becomes dangerous heat.

It’s not easy to derive a number that describes dangerous heat. But in much of the eastern U.S. a number that somehow combines temperature and humidity is useful. Meteorologists often use the heat index. It’s the summer time version of “it’s 98 degrees, but it feels like 105.” For moist climates, the heat index is one version of the “it feels like” temperature. Jeff Masters tells me that in Newton, Iowa yesterday, July 17, 2011, the heat index was 126 degrees F. (see here, and 131 F in Knoxville, Iowa on July 18)

Another measure of heat and humidity is the dew point; that is, the temperature at which dew forms, and effectively limits the nighttime low. The dew points in Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin are currently very high and setting records. Here is a map of dew point for July 19, 2011.

Figure 2: Exceptionally high dew points centered on Iowa.

Now if I was a public health official, and I was trying to understand how a warming planet might impact my life, then here is how I would think about it. First, the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific are going to be warmer, and hence, there will be more humid air. This will mean, with regard to human health for the central U.S., heat waves will become more dangerous, without necessarily becoming hotter. It is also reasonable to expect heat waves will become more frequent and last longer, because those persistent, stuck high pressure systems are, in part, forced by the higher sea surface temperatures. If I am a public health official here is my algorithm – heat waves are already important to my life, and they are likely to get more dangerous, more frequent, and of longer duration. But by how much? Do I need to know by how much before I decide on a plan for action?

If I think about the air being more humid, then I might expect to see trends in the heat index. I might expect to see trends in dew points, and trends in the nighttime minimum temperatures getting higher. (That’s where a greenhouse effect really matters.) I worry about persistent heat, warm nights, and the inability of people and buildings to cool themselves. I worry about their being dangerous heat in places where people and emergency rooms are not used to dangerous heat – not acclimated to heat – not looking for heat-related illness.

Let’s go back to the figure. Rain is suppressed in the middle of the high pressure system, but around the edge of the high pressure system it will rain; there will be storms. (see Figure 3 at the end) The air around the edge of high is warm and very wet. Wet air is energetic air, and it is reasonable to expect local severe storms. (See Severe Storm on Lake Michigan) And if the high pressure is persistent, stuck, then days of extreme weather are possible. If this pattern sets up, then there is increased likelihood of flooding. If I am that public health official, then I am alerted to the possibility of more extreme weather and the dangers thereof. But, again, can the increase of extreme weather be quantified? Do I need to quantify it before I decide on a plan of action?

Still with the figure - what about that region of extended drought and the heat from the high pressure system? Dehydration becomes a more important issue. As a public health official, I start to see the relation of the heat event to other aspects of the weather, the climate. I see the relation to drought. I see the flood, and it’s relation to the winter snow pack and spring rains.

So what I have presented here is to look at the local mechanisms of the weather – what are the basic underlying physics responsible for hot and cold, wet and dry – for moist air? If I stick to these basic physics, and let the climate model frame the more complex regional and global picture, what can I say about the future? Do I have to have a formal prediction to take action? Here in 2011, I see drought and flood and hot weather and warm oceans that interact together to make a period of sustained, dangerous heat. It does not have to “set a record” to convey the reality of the warming earth. It tells me the type of event that is likely to come more often, of longer duration, and of, perhaps, of greater intensity. If I am a public health planner, then I can know this with some certainty. The question becomes, how do I use that information in my planning?

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Figure 3: Radar loop showing precipitation around the edge of the large high pressure system in the middle of the continent. July 19, 2011.

Quoting nymore:Intelligent design is a religious view and you know it. I mean since the opinion you stated is yours I will take it with a grain of salt since you have no credibility left anyway I have taken you to task enough already that anyone who reads this blog should realize you are not a credible source of information with your made up facts and no sources. BTW I do not believe in intelligent design but if he does so what. I know you believe in socialism or communism but I don't take that into account when reading your posts

Socialism and communism are real economic/sociopolitical systems. "Intelligent Design", on the other hand, is a superstitious hypothesis not remotely grounded in science or reality. As such, someone claiming scientific knowledge can be a socialist or a communist and still retain all their scientific credibility. Meanwhile, someone claiming a belief in the supernatural immediately loses their scientific credibility, at least in the eyes of many.

Quoting nymore:City cores shown to be cooling down due to large air conditioners cooling buildings from inside out causing the wet bulb temperature to drop within 10 feet of large structures

Actually it's just the opposite.Via the process of capturing latent heat loss (air conditioning)to cool the interior of a building you first create heat through the compression phase. This heat generation takes place outside the building. In addition the unit itself creates a substantial amount of heat within the fans and compressors. Couple that with the heat reflected back by the buildings exteriors you are worse off than if there was no building there at all.You can test this by moving your AC unit totally inside your house and I think you'll find you're worse off than with it outside as designed....or you can take my word for it.

Furthermore, stand next to a building downtown and then go stand in the park.

The article was simply a transcript of how a so-called scientist invented the drowning of many polar bears due to global warming, when he only saw three dead bears that drowned due to a severe winter storm. Al Gore used this fraudulent science as the basis for part of his movie. If that isn't bias, I don't know what is. This "scientist" is now under investigation for that fraud. Did you even read the transcript? As for bias, anything released by the government is biased. A culture of corruption exists among gov't-employed climate scientists. If they don't spout the gov't propaganda, they don't eat. The more the info they release is scrutinized, the more it is seen that they manipulate the numbers. Even NASA scientists themselves are starting to doubt the veracity of their info. If you have read the previous links on this blog posted by me and others, you can see how this charade is slowing falling apart.

As far as my articles being ignored, they are only ignored by people with a preconceived notion that AGW is real. No one with an open mind ignores them. As far as attacking you, it would do no good. That's the modus operandi of warmists. Snide comments because they can hide behind that computer monitor.

Edit: Belief in AGW usually goes hand in hand with liberal ideology. Several psychologists and psychiatrists have recently written books explaining the mental disorder of liberalism.

Actually if you have links to those books, I'd be interested in reading them.

I have read a few articles (stumbled across them, not searching for them) that show how people's self perception dominates their beliefs in a majority of cases. Liberals, being liberal, are less likely in intellectual subjects to be dominated by beliefs not relevant to the subject in question. That doesn't make liberals 'better' or 'smarter', just more open to analysing facts based on facts alone, everything else being equal. Everything isn't always equal of course.

By the way, what part of the science do you disagree with? Ok, the conclusions obviously, but what part of hte theory is false?

Kevin Trenberth isn't he the one who said it should be warming more because the model said so but data showed it was not, so the data must be wrong because his model had to be right. Also the guy who wrote about ACE for hurricanes in 2005 proving man made climate change because the trend was on its way up, but left it out in 2007 when the trend was falling. oh yea he is credible don't stand by statements you made, first see which way the wind is blowing and use that to make an argument for your position. BBL

Intelligent design is a religious view and you know it. I mean since the opinion you stated is yours I will take it with a grain of salt since you have no credibility left anyway I have taken you to task enough already that anyone who reads this blog should realize you are not a credible source of information with your made up facts and no sources. BTW I do not believe in intelligent design but if he does so what. I know you believe in socialism or communism but I don't take that into account when reading your posts

Quoting nymore:I can find nothing that says Spencer receives money from the fossil fuel industry. Also saying he is not credible because of a religious view is stooping to a level that is low even for you Neo.

I never mentioned religion, did I? I merely spoke of his lack of scientific credibility. Now, if a scientist comes out and insists that the earth is flat or that the sun is the center of the universe or that babies are brought by storks, he has no credibility, at least to most. If you feel otherwise, however, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

New research suggesting that cloud cover, not carbon dioxide, causes global warming is getting buzz in climate skeptic circles. But mainstream climate scientists dismissed the research as unrealistic and politically motivated.

"It is not newsworthy," Daniel Murphy, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cloud researcher, wrote in an email to LiveScience.

The study, published July 26 in the open-access online journal Remote Sensing, got public attention when a writer for The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think-tank that promotes climate change skepticism, wrote for Forbes magazine that the study disproved the global warming worries of climate change "alarmists." However, mainstream climate scientists say that the argument advanced in the paper is neither new nor correct. The paper's author, University of Alabama, Huntsville researcher Roy Spencer, is a climate change skeptic and controversial figure within the climate research community.

"He's taken an incorrect model, he's tweaked it to match observations, but the conclusions you get from that are not correct," Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said of Spencer's new study.

Spencer's research hinges on the role of clouds in climate change. Mainstream climate researchers agree that climate change happens when carbon dioxide traps heat from the sun in the atmosphere, much in the same way that a windshield traps solar heat in a car on a sunny afternoon. As the planet warms, a side effect is more water vapor in the atmosphere. This water vapor, known to most of us as clouds, traps more heat, creating a viscous loop.

Spencer sees it differently. He thinks that the whole cycle starts with the clouds. In other words, random increases in cloud cover cause climate warming. The cloud changes are caused by "chaos in the climate system," Spencer told LiveScience.

In the new paper, Spencer looked at satellite data from 2000 to 2010 to compare cloud cover and surface temperatures. Using a simple model, he linked the two, finding, he said, that clouds drive warming. His comparisons of his data with six Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models showed, he said, that the models are too sensitive (meaning some variables, such as warming, increase at the slightest change in other factors) and that carbon dioxide is not likely to cause much warming at all.

However, no climate scientist contacted by LiveScience agreed.

The study finds a mismatch between the month-to-month variations in temperature and cloud cover in models versus the real world over the past 10 years, said Gavin Schmidt, a NASA Goddard climatologist. "What this mismatch is due to %u2014 data processing, errors in the data or real problems in the models %u2014 is completely unclear."

Other researchers pointed to flaws in Spencer's paper, including an "unrealistic" model placing clouds as the driver of warming and a lack of information about the statistical significance of the observed temperature changes. Statistical significance is the likelihood of results being real, as opposed to chance fluctuations unrelated to the other variables in the experiment.

"I cannot believe it got published," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Several researchers expressed frustration that the study was attracting media attention.

"If you want to do a story then write one pointing to the ridiculousness of people jumping onto every random press release as if well-established science gets dismissed on a dime," Schmidt said. "Climate sensitivity is not constrained by the last two decades of imperfect satellite data, but rather the paleoclimate record."

Spencer agreed that his work could not disprove the existence of manmade global warming. But he dismissed research on the ancient climate, calling it a "gray science."

The science of Spencer's work proved inextricable from the political debate surrounding global warming. The paper was mostly unnoticed in the public sphere until the Forbes blogger declared it "extremely important."

Dessler, the A&M climatologist said that he doubted the research would shift the political debate around global warming.

And with that, it's back to the drawing board for the denialists, I suppose. Better luck next time, guys! Though frankly I don't need a teardown of the Spencer paper; anyone who can with a straight face work for Big Energy, support "Intelligent Design" over evolution, say that ideological motives are his primary concern, and still claim authority is someone who definitely does not deserve to wear the title "credible". Or "scientist", for that matter.

Silly denialists.

You didn't like Forbes magazine publishing the Spencer paper but this opinion article from livescience, which is owned and operated by TechMediaNetwork, a media advertising middle-man corp. One that is even partnered with your beloved FoxNews, which has been said by some not to be a real news network if I recall.

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Since none of you man made global warming believers has a problem with Gavin Schmidt saying their satellites can not be trusted I don't wanna see anymore graphs or information from their satellites posted here as we have been told by Gavin they are unreliable. BBL

Quoting JBastardi:Want to know why the Arctic Wildlife "Expert" who started the fraud about the drowned polar bears is under investigation? Just read the transcript of his testimony before the IG. This is typical of all global warming "science." Under scrutiny, it all falls apart. I've never read such a conglomeration of nonsense in all my life.

Quoting JBastardi:Want to know why the Arctic Wildlife "Expert" who started the fraud about the drowned polar bears is under investigation? Just read the transcript of his testimony before the IG. This is typical of all global warming "science." Under scrutiny, it all falls apart. I've never read such a conglomeration of nonsense in all my life.

I've read the transcripts elsewhere, and it sounds like a couple of scientists doing their job diligently and honestly. If observational or calculation errors were made, that's why scientific results always need independent verification. So no loss. At the end, Monnett himself notes that even if they were "sloppy", that doesn't mean there was any intent to deceive.

The entire Monnett witch hunt is very clearly timed to obfuscate the truth about climate change, to sully the waters so decisionmakers can't see the bottom. Big Energy wants to drill up thataway, and they'll stop at nothing to please their shareholders, even if that means destroying a man's professional career.

New research suggesting that cloud cover, not carbon dioxide, causes global warming is getting buzz in climate skeptic circles. But mainstream climate scientists dismissed the research as unrealistic and politically motivated.

"It is not newsworthy," Daniel Murphy, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cloud researcher, wrote in an email to LiveScience.

The study, published July 26 in the open-access online journal Remote Sensing, got public attention when a writer for The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think-tank that promotes climate change skepticism, wrote for Forbes magazine that the study disproved the global warming worries of climate change "alarmists." However, mainstream climate scientists say that the argument advanced in the paper is neither new nor correct. The paper's author, University of Alabama, Huntsville researcher Roy Spencer, is a climate change skeptic and controversial figure within the climate research community.

"He's taken an incorrect model, he's tweaked it to match observations, but the conclusions you get from that are not correct," Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, said of Spencer's new study.

Spencer's research hinges on the role of clouds in climate change. Mainstream climate researchers agree that climate change happens when carbon dioxide traps heat from the sun in the atmosphere, much in the same way that a windshield traps solar heat in a car on a sunny afternoon. As the planet warms, a side effect is more water vapor in the atmosphere. This water vapor, known to most of us as clouds, traps more heat, creating a viscous loop.

Spencer sees it differently. He thinks that the whole cycle starts with the clouds. In other words, random increases in cloud cover cause climate warming. The cloud changes are caused by "chaos in the climate system," Spencer told LiveScience.

In the new paper, Spencer looked at satellite data from 2000 to 2010 to compare cloud cover and surface temperatures. Using a simple model, he linked the two, finding, he said, that clouds drive warming. His comparisons of his data with six Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models showed, he said, that the models are too sensitive (meaning some variables, such as warming, increase at the slightest change in other factors) and that carbon dioxide is not likely to cause much warming at all.

However, no climate scientist contacted by LiveScience agreed.

The study finds a mismatch between the month-to-month variations in temperature and cloud cover in models versus the real world over the past 10 years, said Gavin Schmidt, a NASA Goddard climatologist. "What this mismatch is due to %u2014 data processing, errors in the data or real problems in the models %u2014 is completely unclear."

Other researchers pointed to flaws in Spencer's paper, including an "unrealistic" model placing clouds as the driver of warming and a lack of information about the statistical significance of the observed temperature changes. Statistical significance is the likelihood of results being real, as opposed to chance fluctuations unrelated to the other variables in the experiment.

"I cannot believe it got published," said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Several researchers expressed frustration that the study was attracting media attention.

"If you want to do a story then write one pointing to the ridiculousness of people jumping onto every random press release as if well-established science gets dismissed on a dime," Schmidt said. "Climate sensitivity is not constrained by the last two decades of imperfect satellite data, but rather the paleoclimate record."

Spencer agreed that his work could not disprove the existence of manmade global warming. But he dismissed research on the ancient climate, calling it a "gray science."

The science of Spencer's work proved inextricable from the political debate surrounding global warming. The paper was mostly unnoticed in the public sphere until the Forbes blogger declared it "extremely important."

Dessler, the A&M climatologist said that he doubted the research would shift the political debate around global warming.

And with that, it's back to the drawing board for the denialists, I suppose. Better luck next time, guys! Though frankly I don't need a teardown of the Spencer paper; anyone who can with a straight face work for Big Energy, support "Intelligent Design" over evolution, say that ideological motives are his primary concern, and still claim authority is someone who definitely does not deserve to wear the title "credible". Or "scientist", for that matter.

Well this certainly is good news for NASA. Gavin Schmidt who works for NASA says NASA satellites are junk. All the people using these satellites for any observations can throw out that information as it is unreliable. Sea surface temps gone, ocean heat content gone, ice volume gone, ice extent gone, temperatures over land gone, water vapor in the atmosphere gone and all other measurements done by satellites gone unless they agree with your narrative then they are accurate if not they are imperfect. For me and other tax payers this should be good news as we can get rid of the GISS or Goddard Institute for Space Studies since their satellites are no good I am not sure why they keep wasting our money with satellites that can not be trusted. I am sure his bosses will be impressed to know that Gavin thinks their own satellites suck, I will be amazed if Gavin has a job much longer with NASA. I know if he worked for me and told the public the machines we use are unreliable. I would tell him to go to the office as his check will be waiting for him.

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth's atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmists have claimed.

Study co-author Dr. Roy Spencer, a principal research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and U.S. Science Team Leader for the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer flying on NASA's Aqua satellite, reports that real-world data from NASA's Terra satellite contradict multiple assumptions fed into alarmist computer models.

"The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than the climate models show," Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. "There is a huge discrepancy between the data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans."

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted.

The new findings are extremely important and should dramatically alter the global warming debate.

Scientists on all sides of the global warming debate are in general agreement about how much heat is being directly trapped by human emissions of carbon dioxide (the answer is "not much"). However, the single most important issue in the global warming debate is whether carbon dioxide emissions will indirectly trap far more heat by causing large increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds. Alarmist computer models assume human carbon dioxide emissions indirectly cause substantial increases in atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds (each of which are very effective at trapping heat), but real-world data have long shown that carbon dioxide emissions are not causing as much atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds as the alarmist computer models have predicted.

The new NASA Terra satellite data are consistent with long-term NOAA and NASA data indicating atmospheric humidity and cirrus clouds are not increasing in the manner predicted by alarmist computer models. The Terra satellite data also support data collected by NASA's ERBS satellite showing far more longwave radiation (and thus, heat) escaped into space between 1985 and 1999 than alarmist computer models had predicted. Together, the NASA ERBS and Terra satellite data show that for 25 years and counting, carbon dioxide emissions have directly and indirectly trapped far less heat than alarmist computer models have predicted.

In short, the central premise of alarmist global warming theory is that carbon dioxide emissions should be directly and indirectly trapping a certain amount of heat in the earth's atmosphere and preventing it from escaping into space. Real-world measurements, however, show far less heat is being trapped in the earth's atmosphere than the alarmist computer models predict, and far more heat is escaping into space than the alarmist computer models predict.

When objective NASA satellite data, reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, show a "huge discrepancy" between alarmist climate models and real-world facts, climate scientists, the media and our elected officials would be wise to take notice. Whether or not they do so will tell us a great deal about how honest the purveyors of global warming alarmism truly are.

James M. Taylor is senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News.

Well, that's a different story, of course; in #1008, I was referring to the James Taylor piece in Forbes where he stated "New NASA Data Blow Gaping Hole In Global Warming Alarmism", not the one about the Arctic scientist who's the subject of a political witch hunt.

Now, so long as we're talking about that Forbes story: while the denialosphere blew up yesterday with trumpeting Spencer's latest, scientists around the globe have been pretty unanimous in their reaction. Some quotes from a LiveScience article:

"He's taken an incorrect model, he's tweaked it to match observations, but the conclusions you get from that are not correct...[however] it makes the skeptics feel good" Andrew Dessler, atmospheric sciences professor at Texas A&M

"If you want to do a story then write one pointing to the ridiculousness of people jumping onto every random press release as if well-established science gets dismissed on a dime. Climate sensitivity is not constrained by the last two decades of imperfect satellite data, but rather the paleoclimate record." Gavin Schmidt, NASA Goddard scientist

And from the text of the article:

"Mainstream climate scientists say that the argument advanced in the paper is neither new nor correct."

"Researchers pointed to flaws in Spencer's paper, including an 'unrealistic' model placing clouds as the driver of warming and a lack of information about the statistical significance of the temperatures observed by the satellites."

"Spencer himself is up front about the politics surrounding his work. In July, he wrote on his blog that his job 'has helped save our economy from the economic ravages of out-of-control environmental extremism, and said he viewed his role as protecting 'the interests of the taxpayer.'"

- - - - - - - - -

Many scientists seek scientific truth; I suppose Spencer should at least be given points for being honest enough to admit that that search for truth isn't his first priority.

Thousands of land and ocean temperature measurements are recorded each day around the globe. This includes measurements from climate reference stations, weather stations, ships, buoys and autonomous gliders in the oceans.

These surface measurements are also supplemented with satellite measurements. These measurements are processed, examined for random and systematic errors, and then finally combined to produce a time series of global average temperature change. A number of agencies around the world have produced datasets of global-scale changes in surface temperature using different techniques to process the data and remove measurement errors that could lead to false interpretations of temperature trends.

The warming trend that is apparent in all of the independent methods of calculating global temperature change is also confirmed by other independent observations, such as the melting of mountain glaciers on every continent, reductions in the extent of snow cover, earlier blooming of plants in spring, a shorter ice season on lakes and rivers, ocean heat content, reduced arctic sea ice, and rising sea levels.

I appreciate the links, Ossqss, but why do you give me links to Roy Spencer's comments on this? He wrote the article in the link I supplied. This is kind of like asking someone to grade their own test with no other resources at their disposal to use.

Simulated global temperature in experiments that include human influences (pink line), and model experiments that included only natural factors (blue line). The black line is observed temperature change.

I appreciate the links, Ossqss, but why do you give me links to Roy Spencer's comments on this? He wrote the article in the link I supplied. This is kind of like asking someone to grade their own test with no other resources at their disposal to use.

Oh, it wouldn't be the concrete, steel, asphalt and other known heat-retaining substances. No, that couldn't be it, especially the higher temperatures at night. Of course it's CO2. You alarmists should be the deniers. Denying real science itself.

Are you of the opinion that somehow CO2-induced warming is mutually incompatible with city-induced heating? Do you believe that the existence of the latter disproves the existence of the former? And if so, can you please explain to us all why that would be? Thanks!

Quoting JBastardi:Urbanization, logically, causes temperature increases, which affect temperature stations, no matter what any warmist might tell you. Apparently, the laws of physics only apply in China, because the US appears to thwart those laws as NOAA might have you believe:

With the nation’s attention diverted by the drama over the debt ceiling, Republicans in the House of Representatives are loading up an appropriations bill with 39 ways — and counting — to significantly curtail environmental regulation.

When their Big Polluting masters play a tune, the puppets do just as they're expected: they get up and start dancing a lively little jig, and the puppet masters smile. Of course, the whole world pays the price for the festivities--but so long as the puppets can get a few more dollars in their campaign war chests and their masters can see a few extra dollars in their stock portfolios, who cares, right? :-\